1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cover-equipped connector.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art electrical connectors comprise a female housing that is insertable into a receptacle of a male housing. A lock arm is provided on the prior art female housing for elastic locking with the male housing. In recent years, it has become an urgent necessity to prevent an erroneous unlocking by inadvertent contact of another member with the lock arm. Such an erroneous unlocking could lead to the entrance of external matter into the receptacle of a connector provided in an essential circuit, particularly an airbag circuit.
To address this need, it recently was proposed to provide the male housing with a cover for openably and closably covering a lock portion over the front surface of the receptacle. However, the cover of this proposed connector proposed would have to be opened by hand before the housings are connected. This leads to an increase in the number of operation steps. Furthermore, it takes time to open the cover when the connector is arranged in a narrow space, thereby presenting a problem in operation efficiency. Thus, there is still an opportunity for improvements.
The present invention was developed in view of the above problem and an object thereof is to provide a cover-equipped connector in which housings can smoothly be connected.